Tuesday, July 29, 2008

I don't understand this terminology

I have never understood the term "racial tolerance." The straight-outta-the-dictionary definition for tolerate is this:

1:
to endure or resist the action of (as a drug or food) without serious side effects or discomfort : exhibit physiological tolerance for

2:
a: to allow to be or to be done without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction
b: to put up with
So essentially, this term literally means "putting up with different races." Not accepting them for who they are, but dealing with the fact that we can't change that they exist. It's as if asking people to accept races as their human brothers is asking too much out of them. No, we just need to "tolerate" them, like we tolerate children asking millions of questions, or how we tolerate a lover's chronic halitosis.
Now, I'm not knocking these people that promote what they call "racial tolerance," but I've always thought they needed to get their terminology down before picking fights with the KKK.

And no, I don't really have any suggestions as to what they should change it to. Maybe something along the lines of "Hey, people that don't have the same skin color as you are people too," or something. They could be the HPTDHTSSCAYAPT organization.
Eh, maybe that's too long. But fun to say.

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